Betting the Bad Boy (2 page)

Colt sat behind his huge desk looking cool as a fucking cucumber. His jet-black hair combed perfectly, his thousand-dollar suit fitting his long body perfectly, and on his arm a watch that cost more than Duke’s first five cars combined. How the two of them turned out so differently while growing up in the same dilapidated trailer on the outskirts of town was a mystery to him.

“You pick up the phone when I call you. You can mess with everybody else, but don’t fuck with me. I’m not scared of you.”

“Sir?” Colt’s harried assistant rushed through the door. “I called security. They are on their way. Should I call the police?”

“No. You both can leave.” Colt looked at the man in the chair. “Security won’t be necessary.”

“Are you sure?” the man asked.

“Get out,” Colt ordered. They both left, but not before giving Duke a cautious look. “Did you miss me, Duke? I’m touched. Really. I think I’m getting a little choked up.”

“You’re going to be choking when I shove your ugly-ass tie down your throat,” Duke said, tempted to knock that smug look off his face. “You pick up the phone when I call. I don’t give a fuck what you’re doing. You may be sitting behind this desk, but this is still my damn company.”

“This tie cost more than everything you own put together.” Colt stared at him, sizing him up almost, not seeming bothered by him at all. He never backed down, and Duke admired that about him. It made him good at his job.

But nothing ever got to Colt. Nothing seemed to make him happy or pissed off. He was almost emotionless, and Duke knew that life and their father had beaten it out of the once sensitive little boy.

“You interrupted my meeting. We’re still trying to acquire that custom bike shop so we can start the new division of King’s Customs.”

“I don’t give a shit about that shop. I should be more concerned why nobody in the building knows who the fuck I am. This is my damn company.”

“The company I run. I make the big financial decisions while you play with your cars. I’m in the office every day. You haven’t been to corporate headquarters once. You’ve never interviewed or met the staff. You told me that you didn’t give a shit who I hired as long as they didn’t fuck up. Nobody’s fucking up here, Duke. Which is probably why you haven’t dragged your ass down here in two years.”

“My playing with cars is the reason you get to drive your fancy expensive imported piece of shit. And just because I’m not down here trying figure out how to take over the goddamn world doesn’t mean I don’t read the reports. I’m always checking up on your ass. Don’t think that I’m not. Don’t forget who’s in charge.”

Duke had built this company from the ground up. He knew the combination of car-heads and high rollers in the Las Vegas area could make him money, provide him with a living that he loved, and allow him to hire men who needed a second chance like himself. Colt may have turned his little shop into thirty and put his name on windshield wiper fluid, but Duke had done all the hard work while Colt was getting his third or fourth degree from his fancy college. Duke was the one scrubbing grease off his fingernails and paint out of his jeans.

Colt just stared at him quietly, not giving away what he was thinking. Not even bothering to ask him why he was there. “Lolly is sick,” Duke said quietly, the words hitting him harder than he expected.

“What do you mean she’s sick?”

“I mean I wouldn’t be looking at your ugly face if she had a damn cold.”

“Is she dying?”

For the first time Duke saw emotion pass through his brother’s eyes. If there was one thing they all agreed on, it was their respect for Lolly. The aunt who took them in after their screwup alcoholic father took off. The last thing Lolly had ever wanted was three wild boys to look after, and she’d never let them forget that. She made them work their asses off, and sure as hell didn’t spoil them, but she fed them well, clothed them, and kept them together when separate foster homes was the only other option.

They were all grateful to her, but that didn’t stop them from leaving their hometown of Destiny as soon as they got the chance.

“She wants us to come home,” Duke told him.

“You spoke to her?”

“This morning. We’re leaving right now. Levi is downstairs. Get your ass in the car.”

“Shit,” Colt cursed under his breath.

Shit was right. The last thing Duke wanted to do now was go back to the place that had sent him to prison.

Chapter 2

“Are we there yet?”

“Shut up.”

“Almost.” Duke and Colt spoke at the same moment.

Duke glanced in his rearview mirror at Levi, who was lounging across the backseat of the laser-blue 1958 Chevy Bel Air looking entirely too relaxed for having been cooped in a car for hours. “If you ask that one more time, old Duke here is probably going to break your fingers,” Colt said to him, probably sensing Duke was growing more on edge as they grew closer to their hometown.

“As long as he stays away from my face.” Levi smoothed his hands over his chiseled jaw. “We all know that’s the moneymaker.” The boy was one of the cockiest sons of bitches that Duke ever had the pleasure of knowing, but he was still damn likable and that annoyed him.

“You’ve never been punched in your moneymaker, boy?” Duke looked at him through the rearview mirror. “You’re not a man until you have. Maybe I should make a man out of you.”

“You’re always so damn cranky,” Levi complained. “When’s the last time you got laid? Trust me, it’ll make you feel better.”

It had been a while since he’d been with a woman, but a few sweaty rounds in bed wasn’t going to improve his temperament. His mood probably wouldn’t get better until they were facing the other direction and he was heading back to his shop, his realm, where he was really a king and people respected him for who he was and what he did. “When’s the last time you stopped running your mouth?”

“It’s not my fault that I’m the only one who has any social skills in this family,” Levi said, sounding annoyed. “People like me, and after spending nearly ten hours cooped up in this death trap with you two sons of bitches I know why they don’t like you.”

“This Chevy is not a death trap. It’s a classic.” And it was one of his favorites. His shop had customized hundreds of cars and bikes over the years, but this beauty was one of his first. He’d done everything from replacing the engine to painting the flames on the sides with his bare hands.

“It doesn’t have seat belts. Or air bags. I’m pretty sure you stopped short a few times just to see me smash into the back of your seat.”

Duke shrugged. “I might have. Can’t have you too comfortable back there. You shouldn’t get to sleep while I’m driving nearly ten hours.”

“I would have driven some of the way!”

“Nobody drives me around.”

“I was a goddamn race-car driver. You don’t trust me with your car? You’re the one who taught me how to drive. I learned everything I know about cars from you.”

“Sometimes I wonder if that was a mistake. Could never seem to get you out of my hair after that.”

Levi had stuck close to him since he’d gotten out of prison. He could have stayed in Destiny. He was the best liked out of the three of them, but he’d left with Colt the day Duke was sentenced and hadn’t looked back. If nothing else, Levi was loyal to his blood.

“We should have flown here,” Colt said after a long silence. His brother had barely spoken during the trip, and Duke wondered what was going through his mind as they got closer to home. He must have felt more out of place than any of them in their blue-collar town. It was even harder for him to fit in because he was always ten times smarter than anyone else. “We would have been there by now,” he continued, looking out the window. “I could have chartered a flight within an hour.”

“It’s a waste of money.” Duke shook his head. “Nothing wrong with driving, Your Highness.”

“Then you should have taken my SUV.”

“I’d rather stick a fork in my eye than show up driving that,” Duke shot back. He wouldn’t be caught dead driving in something that came from Europe.

“I’m going to agree with Colt on this one,” Levi interjected. “His SUV is sick. He’s got TVs in the back and wireless Internet and climate-control seats. Plus it’s a smooth ride with all that German engineering. A man could get some quality sleep in a car like that.”

“You slept enough,” Duke told him.

It was then they saw the familiar green sign that told them they were finally home.

WELCOME TO DESTINY
.

They all fell quiet, and that low anger that’d always seemed to burn inside Duke when he was a kid returned. It wouldn’t be fair to say that he had no happy memories of this place. He did. But the cause of those good memories was the reason he went to prison. Other than that, this place only reminded him of his mother dying and his father walking away from them without looking back.

They drove through town, noting that nothing had really changed. The place seemed to be stuck in time, stuck in an era that had long since passed. There was still the little market on Main Street. Still the same bar that probably had the same locals on the same stools. Still the same tired-looking diner serving the same dishes they had served for the last fifty years.

Destiny was a dusty abandoned mining town turned tourist destination that kept most of the local people employed. But the economy had been drying up when he was sent away. People were losing their jobs and leaving the town in droves. The place had been pretty much dead until a casino opened up not far from town, which brought some life back into the community. Duke was almost glad for prison. He didn’t know what kind of life he would have had if he’d stayed here. He had a feeling he would have been stuck. Stuck being trash. Stuck being poor. Stuck in love with the girl who turned out to be the best-worst that had ever happened to him.

“We’re here.” Duke pulled the car to a stop in front of Lolly’s old ranch-style home. The place had seen better days. The white paint was faded, the porch steps were rotting in places, the lawn needed to be maintained. It just looked sad. Kind of empty. It resembled the way he felt being back here. There were no young men there to make sure that everything around the house was taken care of. Lolly had done it all before they came, but she was younger then. Seeing the house in this kind of shape made him realize that things really do change. Lolly had changed. She was getting older and couldn’t do the things she used to.

“We’re staying here?” Colt asked him. “There’s a fine hotel at the casino. Hell, there’s a motel in town near the mine.”

“I lost my virginity in the parking lot there,” Levi said from the backseat. “Good times.”

“You think you’re too good to stay here?” Duke asked him. Even before any of the shit had gone down with him, Colt was always trying to get out of Destiny. “You always thought you were better than this place.”

“No, but the rest of the town sure as hell didn’t think we were good enough.”

Duke nodded. He liked to push Colt’s buttons, but even he couldn’t deny that he was right. “Proved ’em wrong, didn’t we? I’m going to the hospital. ICU has twenty-four-hour visiting.”

“What? We’ll go with you,” Colt said.

“No. She’s wants to see each of us alone. I go first. You go tomorrow. Levi goes after you.”

Come one at a time,
she’d ordered. If she didn’t want to see them all together, it must mean … He didn’t want to think about what it meant. There were few people Duke owed anything to, but he owed Lolly. She’d stepped in and raised them even though she hated their father. She paid for clothes and Duke’s first car and the course he took to learn the technical parts of car customization. She was their only family, and he sure as hell wasn’t ready to say good-bye to her.

“I’ll go first thing in the morning,” Colt said.

“No, you won’t.” Duke looked at him, still thinking about their aunt. “If you wake her before nine she’ll crack you in the head with whatever is closest.”

“My head is still sore from the time she got me with that damn ugly cowboy boot.” Levi rubbed his head. “I might have been as sharp as Colt if it weren’t for that.”

“Go get some rest,” Duke ordered both of them, even though he knew the task was probably going to be impossible. “I’ll be back later.”

For the first time that night no one argued with him. Colt and Levi stepped out with their overnight bags, and Duke drove off.

*   *   *

This hospital was one place Duke never wanted to see the inside again. He’d share a cell with a seven-foot-tall 350-pound murderer named Tiny before he willingly went into one. But here he was. The last time he’d been here was when his mother was dying. His father dragged the three of them there to see her hooked up to IVs and beeping machines. She was barely conscious. She didn’t even know they were in the room. She had been too far gone to even say good-bye to her boys. The memory was burned into his mind. Her bald head, dull-gray skin, and unfocused glassy eyes. That was his last memory of her. It was hard to think of her any other way.

He sure as hell didn’t want to remember Lolly that way. He walked through the lobby and back toward the elevators. There weren’t many people milling around the hospital this time of night, but a nurse in a pink sweater and blue scrubs caught his attention. She was standing at the end of the hallway and he could only see her from the side, but the way she held herself stirred something inside him. She was elegant, even in those baggy scrubs. Her blondish-brown hair was swept up, one piece falling across her cheek. Her chin was delicate. Her nose ever so slightly turned up.

Any other time, any other day he would have walked past her, not noticed her, thought she was unremarkable. But today as he was waiting for the elevator that was taking too damn long, he studied the woman. She reminded him of his past. Of Grace. He hadn’t seen her since he’d gotten arrested for defending her, the night his life changed forever. Her family had made sure that the daughter of a judge stayed away from the son of the town’s biggest drunk.

That didn’t stop him from thinking about her, though. He’d thought about her a million times since then. He’d wondered how her life had turned out, who she’d ended up with. Probably married to a lawyer with a bushel of kids. Probably hundreds of miles away from here living the life her well-to-do family wanted her to, the life she was meant to have.